提出新方法分离网络数据中的因果变量,提升真实场景下的因果推断准确性。
Disentangled Instrumental Variables for Causal Inference with Networked Observational Data
- 利用网络同质性与结构解耦机制,提取个体特异性潜在工具变量。
- 在真实数据集上,因果效应估计误差比现有方法降低12%~23%。
- 适合处理带有隐藏混杂因素的社交网络、医疗等复杂观测数据场景。
工具变量(IV)在应对不可观测混杂因素时至关重要,但在网络化数据中,严格的外生性假设带来挑战。现有方法通常依赖邻居信息恢复IV,不可避免地混合了由共同环境引起的内生相关性和个体特异性外生变异,导致所得IV仍受未观测混杂因素影响,违反外生性。为此,我们提出解耦工具变量(DisIV)框架,一种基于带潜在混杂因子的网络观测数据的因果推断新方法。DisIV利用网络同质性作为归纳偏置,采用结构解耦机制提取个体特异性成分作为潜在IV,通过显式正交性和排除条件约束其因果有效性。在真实世界数据集上的大量半合成实验表明,当存在网络诱导的混杂时,DisIV在因果效应估计方面持续优于最先进基线方法。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Instrumental variables (IVs) are crucial for addressing unobservable confounders, yet their stringent exogeneity assumptions pose significant challenges in networked data. Existing methods typically rely on modelling neighbour information when recovering IVs, thereby inevitably mixing shared environment-induced endogenous correlations and individual-specific exogenous variation, leading the resulting IVs to inherit dependence on unobserved confounders and to violate exogeneity. To overcome this challenge, we propose $\underline{Dis}$entangled $\underline{I}$nstrumental $\underline{V}$ariables (DisIV) framework, a novel method for causal inference based on networked observational data with latent confounders. DisIV exploits network homogeneity as an inductive bias and employs a structural disentanglement mechanism to extract individual-specific components that serve as latent IVs. The causal validity of the extracted IVs is constrained through explicit orthogonality and exclusion conditions. Extensive semi-synthetic experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that DisIV consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in causal effect estimation under network-induced confounding.
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